Passing Nella Larsen Analysis

Alexander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn said “Literature transmits incontrovertible condensed experience... from generation to generation. In this way literature becomes the living memory of a nation,” what he is essentially saying is literature is not made in a vacuum, and it is directly influenced by the events and circumstances occurring during the time it was written in. It is also influenced by events from the author’s life and the author’s view of the time period. Nella Larsen, an influential author of the late 1920s, is known as the novelist of the Harlem Renaissance. In her novel Passing, which was published in 1929, Larsen portrays her opinions about racial identity, families, and friendship, and also gives readers insight to her view of …show more content…
The novel was written about people who live in Harlem during the 1920s, which means it reveals the social, cultural, and racial issues occurring during that time period. During WW1, many white men who worked in the city were drafted to go to war; the jobs they left behind were filled by African American men who moved from the southern states to the northern states. The majority of the people migrating moved to the cities. This “Great Migration” set up the foundation for the Harlem Renaissance, which is considered the golden age in African-American culture. During this time period, many African-Americans were successful in literature and the arts. It lasted roughly from the 1910s through the mid 1930s, (History.com Staff). In the novel, the main character talks about restaurants which only serve white people and she also talks about white people who treat colored people poorly. In Larsen’s biography, Davis explains that Larsen both admired and had an aversion towards white people. The main character of the story is similar to the author; both Irene Redfield and Nella Larsen are light-skinned African American women who live in Harlem and are married to men who are successful and work in the field of science. The life Irene Redfield leads resembles Nella Larsen’s life, and probably resembles the lives of many women like to …show more content…
If Clare’s husband knew her true racial identity, he would divorce her and she would have no financial support. She is also concerned about how her husband would treat their daughter if he knew she was not white. Clare says her daughter is the only reason she has not left her husband. She says “I think that being a mother is the cruelest thing in the world.” (Larsen 227) Even though Clare is married she tells people her last name is Kendry, which is her maiden name. The conflict also affects Irene’s marriage. Irene and her husband are more disagreeable, and argue about how they should raise their children. Irene also has a suspicion about her husband Brian; she suspects he is having an affair with Clare. Even though she has little evidence this is true, it makes her even more upset with Clare, and she can not decide if she wants Mr. Bellew to find out about Clare’s racial identity or not. Similarly to how Clare wanted to be separated from John Bellew, Larsen wanted to be independent from her husband. Nella Larsen may have chosen to write about conflicts in her characters marriages because she was experiencing problems in her own marriage. The novel was published in 1929 and she and her husband were officially divorced in 1933. Nella Larsen felt inadequate when she was compared to her husband, (Davis), and the couple had been reportedly struggling in the late 1920s. After she became popular because